Fine Arts Subject Guide: Reference Materials

With more than 1,700 entries, The Concise Dictionary of Art Terms is an accessible and comprehensive A-Z guide covering a wide range of terms from the visual art world, including periods, styles, materials, well-known schools, techniques, and much more.

Boasting well over 6,000 contributors from 12 countries, the Dictionary offers its readers authoritative and comprehensive global coverage. A resource for both art and cultural studies, the Dictionary serves as a unique guide to all the visual arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, drawing, printmaking, as well as the decorative arts.

The first reference of its kind surveys the full breadth of critical thought on art, culture, and society--from classical philosophy to contemporary critical theory. Featuring 600 original articles by distinguished scholars from many fields and countries, it is a comprehensive survey of major concepts, thinkers, and debates about the meaning, uses, and value of all the arts--from painting and sculpture to literature, music, theater, dance, television, film, and popular culture.

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art is an ambitious publishing endeavor, unparalleled in its comprehensive approach to the study of art in the United States. Edited by Joan Marter, Distinguished Professor of Art History at Rutgers University, the five-volume Encyclopedia reconceptualizes American Art from the vantage point of the twenty-first century with a new methodological approach and broader scope than any such work published to date.

Written by 92 specialists in association with the American Folk Art Museum, the 600 cross-referenced and indexed articles, with bibliographies, included in this selection are the first comprehensive treatment of this influential art form. It includes information on bottle-cap art, canes, carousel art, scrimshaw, quilts, beadwork, and many other genres, as well as information on several visionary artists who still practice their crafts. This work has special appeal for folklorists.

The Benezit Dictionary of Artists (2006) is the largest, most up-to-date compendium of artists' biographies in the English language, and for the last century has been an indispensable resource for art researchers. The dictionary is a standard reference work for art research and is known for its coverage of lesser-known artists, images of artists' signatures, and inclusion of auction sale records. The Benezit Dictionary Asian Artists consists of more than 4,700 entries on artists from throughout Asia, including the Middle East, from antiquity to the present.